Is This Forum A Market?

[Xerographica]

Economic models, on the other hand, I have no idea what the attraction is. What do they do or say that's so hot?

I assume you're referring to me here. I'm not using the model to predict anything. What I'm doing is putting your argument in a bare bones, reduced-form system and testing for logical consistency. Basically, if we strip everything away to the baseline of your argument (no information asymmetries, well-defined preferences, only non-stochastic outcomes, etc.) and try to look for your logic, will we find it? That's what that kind of economic model is used for, and here the answer was no. It's just logic. That's what economics is half the time, and you're not providing that.

My logic is sound...

1. Voting does not accurately communicate people's preferences
2. Congresspeople are not omniscient

Therefore, the supply of public goods will not accurately reflect the demand for public goods. Your logic has not come even remotely close to refuting this.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

I assume you're referring to me here. I'm not using the model to predict anything. What I'm doing is putting your argument in a bare bones, reduced-form system and testing for logical consistency. Basically, if we strip everything away to the baseline of your argument (no information asymmetries, well-defined preferences, only non-stochastic outcomes, etc.) and try to look for your logic, will we find it? That's what that kind of economic model is used for, and here the answer was no. It's just logic. That's what economics is half the time, and you're not providing that.

My logic is sound...

1. Voting does not accurately communicate people's preferences
2. Congresspeople are not omniscient

Therefore, the supply of public goods will not accurately reflect the demand for public goods. Your logic has not come even remotely close to refuting this.

Unless you're an amnesiac, you'd remember that I was refuting your claim that there is an incentive to voluntarily supply public goods at their optimal level. You responded poorly and I offered you the opportunity to restructure your argument in a way that was comprehensible, which you've obviously opted not to do.

If you want to hit the "reset" button on the conversation every time you're presented with a counterargument you can't (or can't be bothered) address(ing) honestly, that's your prerogative. But it isn't going to help others see your "Pragmatarianism" as anything other than the bullshit it (realistically) is.

[Xerographica]

Unless you're an amnesiac, you'd remember that I was refuting your claim that there is an incentive to voluntarily supply public goods at their optimal level.

Perhaps we both suffer from amnesia given that you seem to have forgotten that I'm not an anarcho-capitalist.

My amnesia is only partial though given that I haven't forgotten that this is entirely relevant to you...

Economists, like artists, are often in love with their models. - Randall G. Holcombe, Make Economics Policy Relevant: Depose the Omniscient Benevolent Dictator

[The Joseon Dynasty]

Unless you're an amnesiac, you'd remember that I was refuting your claim that there is an incentive to voluntarily supply public goods at their optimal level.

Perhaps we both suffer from amnesia given that you seem to have forgotten that I'm not an anarcho-capitalist.

What does that have to do with anything? I responded directly to a claim you made.

My amnesia is only partial though given that I haven't forgotten that this is entirely relevant to you...

Economists, like artists, are often in love with their models. - Randall G. Holcombe, Make Economics Policy Relevant: Depose the Omniscient Benevolent Dictator

I don't think Randall G. Holcombe would appreciate you taking his statements out of context.

[Maqo]

I assume you're referring to me here. I'm not using the model to predict anything. What I'm doing is putting your argument in a bare bones, reduced-form system and testing for logical consistency. Basically, if we strip everything away to the baseline of your argument (no information asymmetries, well-defined preferences, only non-stochastic outcomes, etc.) and try to look for your logic, will we find it? That's what that kind of economic model is used for, and here the answer was no. It's just logic. That's what economics is half the time, and you're not providing that.

My logic is sound...

1. Voting does not accurately communicate people's preferences
2. Congresspeople are not omniscient

Therefore, the supply of public goods will not accurately reflect the demand for public goods. Your logic has not come even remotely close to refuting this.

You've missed out a couple of important premises there, but I don't actually disagree with your conclusion - for a given definition and degree of 'accuracy', it is highly unlikely that we will hit on the exact right quantity. One could even argue that in a system with more than 1 (or even 0) people, 100% accuracy is impossible to achieve as accuracy upon an average or compromise is kind of meaningless.

No-one is actually trying to disprove that particular conclusion of yours (at least, I'm not). What I do disagree with is that allowing people to choose where their taxes go will be any more accurate; because you have not come even remotely close to proving that. In fact I believe it will be significantly less accurate. And we have used very simple models to demonstrate very believable situations where this could come to pass. The problems with revealing preference for public goods are still present under your pragmatarian system and you STILL have not demonstrated what is the unique quality of a 'market for public goods' that causes people to accurately reveal their preferences.

[Orham]

I assume you're referring to me here. I'm not using the model to predict anything. What I'm doing is putting your argument in a bare bones, reduced-form system and testing for logical consistency. Basically, if we strip everything away to the baseline of your argument (no information asymmetries, well-defined preferences, only non-stochastic outcomes, etc.) and try to look for your logic, will we find it? That's what that kind of economic model is used for, and here the answer was no. It's just logic. That's what economics is half the time, and you're not providing that.

My logic is sound...

1. Voting does not accurately communicate people's preferences
2. Congresspeople are not omniscient

Therefore, the supply of public goods will not accurately reflect the demand for public goods. Your logic has not come even remotely close to refuting this.

It's not as if you haven't encountered logical arguments to diminish the impact of your complaint that the signal-to-noise ratio of a system where power of the purse rests with representatives is lower than that of a system where that power lies with each individual citizen if the signal to be detected is individual preferences concerning funding allocations. No one is trying to convince you that representative democracy is a perfect system, only that it is a functional one which bears far less serious flaws than the alternative you propose. The problem is that you're so stuck on repeatedly pointing out the same flaws representative democracy bears, and which have been repeatedly acknowledged as legitimate flaws of the system, that you're unable to move on to the next step: examining the alternative you've proposed and its own potential flaws.

It has been repeatedly pointed out that your chosen mode for pursuing a greater amount of signal and a smaller amount of noise with respect to that particular variable will bear out practical problems, such as the induction of a free-rider dilemma between taxpayers, a significant reduction in the state's ability to operate in a coordinated fashion without resorting to methods which will themselves greatly undermine the state's ability to function in a timely fashion, defiance of sound military science by encouraging deviation of national defense funding from an emphasis on that which is strategically sound to that which is pareto-optimal from a taxpayer's perspective (which is an ill-informed perspective to boot), the list goes on.

The closest you ever came to presenting a counterargument against the point about strategic effectiveness which I presented was the assumption that pragmatarianism would spread worldwide to near-universal acceptance (something absolutely no political or economic system in the entire history of humankind can boast with a straight face), that despite pragmatarianism's emphasis on pareto-optimality instead of strategic effectiveness (which is nowhere near sound with modern military science) and despite its citizens' desire to invest as much money into butter and as little into guns as is possible pragmatarian societies would still somehow collectively have a sufficiently coordinated and well-developed national defense network to challenge foreign powers which have invested heavily in guns, and that the previous two conditions would somehow not result in an arms buildup between pragmatarian societies and foreign threats because...apparently no one but pragmatarians will exist anymore, and in a state of international cooperation which for some reason doesn't have to worry about cultural/ethnic clashes, conflicts of economic/political interest between international actors, border disputes, or any of the other things that the real world so inconveniently places in front of the United Nations.

Your answer to how a hypothetical tension between a pragmatarian society and the USSR (or USA, it doesn't matter) in a Cold War context wouldn't result in an arms buildup on the pragmatarian side of things was childishly naive and, by the way, an example of another way to engage in an arms buildup (forming mutual defense pacts and arming to fulfill them if needed). Just because the arms buildup is more diffuse doesn't mean it isn't happening.

[Xerographica]

We can keep trying.

1. Does the crowd value football more than I do? Yes, very yes. I don't value it at all. Therefore, I will never ever have to worry about funding football.

2. Does the crowd value public healthcare more than I do? I have no idea.

3. Does the crowd value the environment more than I do? No way. For example, I'm the only person in my neighborhood who has a tropical dry forest instead of a lawn. So, in a pragmatarian system, I would most likely have to worry about funding the environment.

4. Does the crowd value national defense more than I do? I have no idea.

5. Does the crowd value education more than I do? I have no idea.

If we created a market in the public sector...then we would have an infinitely better idea what the crowd values. Here's how I've illustrated this...





If the top of the bar is green, then it means that the crowd values the public good more than you do. If the top of the bar is tan, then it means the opposite.

From your perspective, there is a...

...surplus of healthcare (a)
...shortage of welfare (b)
...shortage of environment (c)
...surplus of defense (d)
...shortage of NASA (e)
...surplus of education (f)

Clearly you're not going to derive any utility from spending your taxes on public goods that there's a surplus of. This means that you wouldn't spend any taxes on healthcare, defense or education. This narrows your spending options down to welfare, environment and NASA. Welfare has the largest shortage so perhaps you'll spend all your taxes on welfare.

As an outside observer...I can't see your utility function. All I can observe is that you spent all your taxes on welfare. This means that I can't conclude that you don't value any of the other public goods. In other words, I can't say that the other public goods don't match your preferences. The only logical conclusion that I can come to is that welfare is, by far, your biggest priority.

In reality though...you're probably not going to sit around observing funding graphs. You're going to live your life and respond to public shortages in much the same way that you respond to private shortages. If a shortage of milk sufficiently concerns you...then you'll allocate your private dollars accordingly. If a shortage of defense sufficiently concerns you...then you'll allocate your public dollars accordingly.

Unlike in the private sector though...in the public sector you'll always have the option to give your taxes to your impersonal shoppers (congress).

What's important to consider is that the further people's values deviate from the norm/crowd...the greater they will perceive the shortages to be. Personally, I'm pretty sure that I'll perceive a huge shortage of environmental protection. But most people will not. Most people in a pragmatarian system will perceive that most things are mostly well funded.

The closer somebody is to the norm...the more closely the funding levels will match their preferences...and the less anxiety they'll have regarding the funding of public goods. The further somebody is from the norm...the less closely the funding levels will match their preferences...and the more they'll toss and turn at night worrying about the adverse consequences of large shortages.

Of course, the mission of every deviant will be to make themselves the norm. That's exactly what I'm doing right now. As a pragmatarian (a deviant)...I have reason to believe that there's a huge shortage of pragmatarianism. My anxiety is that people can't allocate their assets to alleviate or address their anxiety. But most people, having normal values, think the current supply of pragmatarianism is perfectly fine. So here I am trying to convince them otherwise. The more people that I convince...the smaller the shortage...and the more normal pragmatarianism becomes.

Orham's anxiety is, at least superficially, caused by her perception that there would be a large shortage of national defense in a pragmatarian system. This means that she believes herself to be a deviant. Or maybe she would prefer to think of herself as exceptional? When it comes to defense funding...is she really the exception rather than the rule?

Hey Orham, global warming is a far more clear and present danger than any foreign threat. What shall it profit us to win a war but lose the Earth?

See...we could certainly duke it out...and attack each other with pages and pages of facts and figures...but it's not like the loser can allocate their taxes accordingly. Doesn't that make you nervous? It really makes me nervous. Because people can't shop for themselves in the public sector...there's far less incentive to widely disseminate essential information. Widespread ignorance, rational or otherwise, should make everybody nervous.

What's interesting is that most people reject pragmatarianism on the basis of perceived shortages. But for most people...the shortages will actually be far smaller than they currently are. They just don't realize it because they have no idea what the crowd truly values.

Eliminating demand opacity would ensure that shallow input never trumps deep input...

The people feeling, during the continuance of the war, the complete burden of it, would soon grow weary of it, and government, in order to humour them, would not be under the necessity of carrying it on longer than it was necessary to do so. The foresight of the heavy and unavoidable burdens of war would hinder the people from wantonly calling for it when there was no real or solid interest to fight for. The seasons during which the ability of private people to accumulate was somewhat impaired would occur more rarely, and be of shorter continuance. Those, on the contrary, during which the ability was in the highest vigour would be of much longer duration than they can well be under the system of funding. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

People wantonly calling for wars...that should sound familiar...

As was noted in Chapter 3, expressions of malice and/or envy no less than expressions of altruism are cheaper in the voting booth than in the market. A German voter who in 1933 cast a ballot for Hitler was able to indulge his antisemitic sentiments at much less cost than she would have borne by organizing a pogrom. - Geoffrey Brennan, Loren Lomasky, Democracy and Decision

People should be free to wantonly call for wars (shallow input)...but if they want their wishes to come true...then they should have no choice but to reach deep into their own pockets (deep input). This fail safe device will prevent any unnecessary wars. And since no war is really necessary...pragmatarianism would result in world peace.

[Maqo]

Xero,
You didn't address anyone's concerns in your reply just now. So I'll ask again;

My concern (one of them) with your idea is that it appears internally inconsistent. Which is a really bad place to be, as any falsehood can be internally consistent.
The inconsistency I see is thus:
If you believe that people will allocate funding in a market in the fashion that gives them the most personal benefit, and thus public goods are underfunded, and thus compulsory taxation to fund public goods is necessary, then surely those people will still act in the same way when given money to spend in another market and some public goods will still be underfunded.

So for your idea to be internally consistent, there must be something unique about your 'public goods' market. This is something which you have consistently failed to support.

Other concerns: if you'd like to address them, could you please do so without pontificating, and without reference to milk or bakeries or football or any private goods unless you can prove that they act similarly to public goods.

Continuing from above: you can either believe that the market will efficiently allocate funds to where they are needed (and thus, if public goods don't receive money then consumers obviously don't want them/ the funding level they receive is by tautological definition adequate), or you can believe that public goods won't be adequately funded in a market and thus compulsory taxation is necessary, but using compulsory taxation to fund a market for public goods is a logical dissonance.

We have shown by example that, given your premises, actors in a market for public goods acting in non-strategic way to maximise their own personal benefit will not always reach the maximum of their personal benefit, and can in fact minimise societal benefit.

We have show by example that, given your premises, the rational way to act in the 'public market' is to allocate all funds towards the most selfish item which you believe won't reach 'adequate' funding by other people's spending. Ie, not revealing your true preferences, not spending on the items which actually benefit you the most, and perpetuating the free-rider problem.

The 'public market' is set up in such a way that people spending their money in a different order will arrive at different outcomes. Both cannot be optimal unless all configurations of spendings are considered optimal - which is kind of tautological and defeats the entire exercise. Strategic spenders will work out when to spend their money in order to externalise their costs.

The 'public market' does not gain any of the efficiency benefits derived from competition in the normal market. Each government department would have an unassailable monopoly and thus no incentive to improve efficiency.

Indicating how much you demand a good in terms of dollars you would spend on it is worthless unless you know the price of the good: "My demand for bread is $10" is a meaningless statement which cannot be evaluated. Consumers are in no position to know the 'price' of the goods that they purchase from the government - nor should they be, in the interests of efficiency gains from division of labour. Without knowledge of prices, this essentially becomes a 'diamond-water paradox' - consumers will pay for the benefit they derive, without knowledge of the cost of providing the service, and spend $10000 for water and nothing for diamonds.

If you DO provide consumers with the costing of goods, you are introducing inefficiencies into the market by requiring people spend time learning the line-item costing of everything that the government provides or purchases, and asking them to make uninformed decisions about whether those costs are acceptable.... which is a recursive problem, bringing in more and more information about every aspect of the economy which people know less and less about. We can model this problem by finding a random person on the street and asking them to write you personally a household budget, and then telling you based upon that budget how much your salary will be for the next year.

If you DON'T provide consumers with the costing of goods... you open your system up to bronze toilet situations...

In ANY of these situations, you turn the governing of the country into a plutocracy - your say in the purchasing of public goods is directly related to how much money you earn. You have not presented a clear way of how to stop this: your 'demand breadth' idea is not well enough defined to determine whether, eg the richest 10% spending money on Defense is equivalent to, or worth more or less than, the poorest 10% spending money on food stamps; and indeed your discussions when you forget about the demand breadth idea indicate that individual selfish 'narrow' spending is in fact desired (eg, your 'deviant' spending on environmental efforts above).

[Orham]

Orham's anxiety is, at least superficially, caused by her perception that there would be a large shortage of national defense in a pragmatarian system. This means that she believes herself to be a deviant. Or maybe she would prefer to think of herself as exceptional? When it comes to defense funding...is she really the exception rather than the rule?

...wherever would I get the idea that a pragmatarian system would chintz defense? Oh, right. FROM YOU, DAMN IT. Remember the whole "Businessmen are greedy, armies aren't productive, people who don't invest in things that are productive don't have money to invest for long" spiel you went into?

Hey Orham, global warming is a far more clear and present danger than any foreign threat. What shall it profit us to win a war but lose the Earth?

Hey Xero, it's possible to address global warming and maintain a strategically effective national defense at the same time.

What's interesting is that most people reject pragmatarianism on the basis of perceived shortages.

People have pointed out more problems with this system than shortages.

But for most people...the shortages will actually be far smaller than they currently are. They just don't realize it because they have no idea what the crowd truly values.

Eliminating demand opacity would ensure that shallow input never trumps deep input...

Mmhm. And the free-rider dilemma won't create any demand opacity, information asymmetries between government agencies and the general public won't have any impact on these agencies' ability to function if we place their appropriations in the general public's hands, and a merry elf who loves to make toys lives at the North Pole (or in Finland). All facts, to be sure.

People wantonly calling for wars...that should sound familiar...

People should be free to wantonly call for wars (shallow input)...but if they want their wishes to come true...then they should have no choice but to reach deep into their own pockets (deep input). This fail safe device will prevent any unnecessary wars. And since no war is really necessary...pragmatarianism would result in world peace.

People WILL reach into their own pockets and fund war efforts REGARDLESS of whether pragmatarianism is in place or not. Remember Series E Bonds? No, of course you don't, because that's another of my arguments you oh-so-conveniently overlooked. And as for no war ever being necessary...what a laughable notion.

Seriously, you're not worth it anymore.

[Xerographica]

...wherever would I get the idea that a pragmatarian system would chintz defense? Oh, right. FROM YOU, DAMN IT. Remember the whole "Businessmen are greedy, armies aren't productive, people who don't invest in things that are productive don't have money to invest for long" spiel you went into?

My actual point was that people generally don't earn that much money by tilting at windmills. Same thing with barking up a wrong tree. Same thing with a vegetarian who opens a restaurant in a town full of carnivores. Same thing with a Christian who starts a church in a city full of atheists. Errr...if you build it they will come?

I don't think taxpayers are going to spend their taxes on a bridge to nowhere. But how many bridges to nowhere has the government built? Do you think the government was barking up the right tree when it allocated massive amounts of resources to prohibition? What about the current drug war?

At UCLA I studied the monumental and costly efforts of our government to help other countries develop. In Afghanistan I took part in our monumental and costly effort to win a war. And for some reason I'm skeptical of our government's efficacy.

Markets work because there are strong disincentives to picking losers. The less diligently you research...the more likely you are to lose your shirt. Before taxpayers spent their taxes on defense...they would most likely do their homework. And when it comes to any endeavor...but especially defense...we really don't want to prevent people from doing their homework and allocating their taxes accordingly.

Creating a market in the public sector would reduce the number of unnecessary bridges and unnecessary wars.

Hey Xero, it's possible to address global warming and maintain a strategically effective national defense at the same time.

It's possible to have our cake and eat it too? For some reason I really want you to have the opportunity to decide how you'll allocate your resources between the two things. Why is that? Why do I want to facilitate your deep input? Why is your answer important to me?

People have pointed out more problems with this system than shortages.

All problems boil down to shortages. That's why economics, the study of how abundance happens, is so important.

Mmhm. And the free-rider dilemma won't create any demand opacity, information asymmetries between government agencies and the general public won't have any impact on these agencies' ability to function if we place their appropriations in the general public's hands, and a merry elf who loves to make toys lives at the North Pole (or in Finland). All facts, to be sure.

And congress, like God, knows how many hairs are on your head. Which is exactly why command economies succeed. It's really not necessary to give people the freedom to make their preferences known. The government certainly has a monopoly on facts.

People WILL reach into their own pockets and fund war efforts REGARDLESS of whether pragmatarianism is in place or not. Remember Series E Bonds? No, of course you don't, because that's another of my arguments you oh-so-conveniently overlooked. And as for no war ever being necessary...what a laughable notion.

Maybe you wouldn't laugh at the notion if you understood the negative economic consequences of blocking input.

Seriously, you're not worth it anymore.

LOL...if you hadn't told me...I wonder how long it would have taken me to realize that you had moved on to greener pastures?

[Maqo]

I don't think taxpayers are going to spend their taxes on a bridge to nowhere. But how many bridges to nowhere has the government built? Do you think the government was barking up the right tree when it allocated massive amounts of resources to prohibition? What about the current drug war?

Obviously enough Americans at the time decided that their views were most represented by people who supported prohibition. It requires a huge amount of support to get a Constitutional Amendment passed.
Obviously not enough people care about the current drug war one way or the other to elect representatives who will vote to repeal that legislation. As an analogy in your perspective of 'signalling preferences'... if your daughter tells you "I've taken $50 from your wallet and I'm going out with friends tonight", and you say nothing to stop her, you obviously think that is a good use of your money.

Compare that to the number of times that individuals spend their own money on 'bridges to nowhere', on Tulips or Beanie Babies or sub-prime mortgages or expensive cars or failed businesses... I'd much rather take the government's track record than that of most of society.

[Orham]

Pending the answer to a question I've asked Xero in private, I may or may not continue here.

[Galloism]

Pending the answer to a question I've asked Xero in private, I may or may not continue here.

I know I won't be unless he addresses my concerns about his system instead of repeating the economic and governmental equivalent of "because Jesus".

I don't think taxpayers are going to spend their taxes on a bridge to nowhere. But how many bridges to nowhere has the government built?

None, that I'm aware of. Thank you for demonstrating information asymmetry so very very well for us.

Then again, when people start hollering about waste, I actually do research instead of getting all riled up by media buzzwords. The fact, now demonstrated, that, at least for you personally, you don't do your research is ample proof that your taxes are better allocated by an informed central planner. You were easily swayed by media buzzwords and know nothing of the facts.

Here's the thing:

I don't think that you are an anomaly in this regard.

[Liberaxia]

If we created a market in the public sector...then we would have an infinitely better idea what the crowd values. Here's how I've illustrated this...


([url=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UPSJN624y48/U05_0A10eXI/AAAAAAAAASI/P84MGx6S7yI/s1600/Society-Values-Preferences-Surplus-Shortage-Tax-Choice-Pragmatarianism.jpg]Image)[/url]


If the top of the bar is green, then it means that the crowd values the public good more than you do. If the top of the bar is tan, then it means the opposite.

Don't confuse your models for reality.

What's interesting is that most people reject pragmatarianism on the basis of perceived shortages.

No, most people reject it because it makes no sense whatsoever.

[Galloism]

What's interesting is that most people reject pragmatarianism on the basis of perceived shortages.

No, most people reject it because it makes no sense whatsoever.

It's about faith, man.

You gotta have faith.

[Xerographica]

Obviously enough Americans at the time decided that their views were most represented by people who supported prohibition. It requires a huge amount of support to get a Constitutional Amendment passed.

Earlier you agreed that voting (shallow input) does not adequately communicate preferences. Now it seems like you're under the impression that the amount of resources allocated to prohibition accurately reflected the demand for prohibition. It might help if you made the effort to figure out what your position is on the topic of deep vs shallow input.

Obviously not enough people care about the current drug war one way or the other to elect representatives who will vote to repeal that legislation. As an analogy in your perspective of 'signalling preferences'... if your daughter tells you "I've taken $50 from your wallet and I'm going out with friends tonight", and you say nothing to stop her, you obviously think that is a good use of your money.

Again, figure out your position on deep vs shallow input.

Compare that to the number of times that individuals spend their own money on 'bridges to nowhere', on Tulips or Beanie Babies or sub-prime mortgages or expensive cars or failed businesses... I'd much rather take the government's track record than that of most of society.

The government is better than the market at picking winners? So what do you think the tax rate should be?

[Xerographica]

Don't confuse your models for reality.

You stole my line.

No, most people reject it because it makes no sense whatsoever.

People reject the market because it doesn't make any sense? That's "funny" because markets give them the freedom to do so. Markets work because they give people the freedom not to spend their time/money on nonsensical uses of society's limited resources.

Right now you have the freedom not to spend your time on this thread. And I really want you to have this freedom. Why is that? Why am I so concerned with your freedom to exit? Why am I more concerned than you are? Why is your freedom more important to me than it is to you?

[Maqo]

Obviously enough Americans at the time decided that their views were most represented by people who supported prohibition. It requires a huge amount of support to get a Constitutional Amendment passed.

Earlier you agreed that voting (shallow input) does not adequately communicate preferences. Now it seems like you're under the impression that the amount of resources allocated to prohibition accurately reflected the demand for prohibition. It might help if you made the effort to figure out what your position is on the topic of deep vs shallow input.

I have not said anything regarding 'deep' vs 'shallow' input. I have said that nothing perfectly communicates preferences - but I believe elected representatives by definition are in a position to adequately gauge their constituents preferences within an acceptable margin of error.

In the case of prohibition: I believe that demand for prohibition was sufficiently communicated for the government to devote resources. It just turned out that after people got the 'product' it turned out not to work, and the government stopped devoting resources once the public communicated that they realised it didn't work.

Compare that to the number of times that individuals spend their own money on 'bridges to nowhere', on Tulips or Beanie Babies or sub-prime mortgages or expensive cars or failed businesses... I'd much rather take the government's track record than that of most of society.

The government is better than the market at picking winners? So what do you think the tax rate should be?

When did we start talking about who is 'better' at 'picking winners'? And how is your second question related to the first?
I think the government has an adequate idea of what the public's preferences because the public has means of communicating their preferences.

I don't know what the tax rate should be: I don't have enough information to know how much spending is required to optimise all the parameters. What do you think it should be? After all, under pragmatarianism everyone should be able to derive a line-item budget for the entire government, right?


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[Liberaxia]

No, most people reject it because it makes no sense whatsoever.

It's about faith, man.

You gotta have faith.

You call it faith, I call it confusion.

[Liberaxia]

No, most people reject it because it makes no sense whatsoever.

People reject the market because it doesn't make any sense? That's "funny" because markets give them the freedom to do so. Markets work because they give people the freedom not to spend their time/money on nonsensical uses of society's limited resources.

Right now you have the freedom not to spend your time on this thread. And I really want you to have this freedom. Why is that? Why am I so concerned with your freedom to exit? Why am I more concerned than you are? Why is your freedom more important to me than it is to you?

Stop. Just stop. That you see markets as embodying freedom is perverse, much like the idea of the person as a piece of property that owns itself. You're using the word "market" in a strange libertarian way. This forum is not a market. Government officials are the ones who allocate public resources do so because that is what they are supposed to do, as authorized by law. It's not that people find the market nonsensical, it's that your idea is nonsensical. You have shown zero understanding of law or political philosophy. Like Galloism said, we can safely dismiss your idea with prejudice.

[Orham]

Is it strange to think of pragmatarianism as a sort of economic incarnation of direct democracy? I've been thinking about that lately, and to an extent it seems to hold up. It's effectively a party list, proportional, direct democracy with an election threshold, and where each individual's voting power is determined by the proportion of tax receipts drawn from that individual.

If a society is to put an economic democracy in place, this doesn't seem the way to have one. I mean, voting power being determined by one's individual proportion of tax receipts? That's not in line with the sort of thing most advocates of economic democracy are after, which is to create a more equal distribution of bargaining and decision-making power throughout the economy. If the upper class controls a simple majority of federal receipts, it stands to reason that they also control a simple majority of the economic democracy's available votes despite the fact that they are also the least populous socioeconomic class. An economic democracy of that sort fails to accomplish the objectives of economic democracy almost completely.

It seems to me that this would be a serious problem. If we're all voting for pizza toppings, and everyone but me gets a single vote while I receive fifty votes, whose preferred pizza toppings are going to be served? Hope you like anchovies, because I do.

[Xerographica]

Is it strange to think of pragmatarianism as a sort of economic incarnation of direct democracy? I've been thinking about that lately, and to an extent it seems to hold up. It's effectively a party list, proportional, direct democracy with an election threshold, and where each individual's voting power is determined by the proportion of tax receipts drawn from that individual.

It's not strange to think of pragmatarianism (PG) as a direct democracy. Just like it's not strange to think of a market as a direct democracy. Neither is it strange to think of participatory budgeting (PB) as a direct democracy.

However, PB and PG are very different. PB is shallow flowcilitation while PG is deep flowcilitation. And we should all understand that actions (deep input) speak louder than words (shallow input).

If a society is to put an economic democracy in place, this doesn't seem the way to have one. I mean, voting power being determined by one's individual proportion of tax receipts?

Let's do a bit of substitution...

Voting power = influence over how society's limited resources are used
proportion of tax receipts = proportion of productivity

Making the substitutions in your original sentence...

influence over how society's limited resources are used being determined by one's individual proportion of productivity

Well...yeah. Right?

Productivity can't just stand on its own though. Just because you're extremely efficient at producing poison oak doesn't mean that we should give you all the farm land.

A mind, just like farm land, truly is a terrible thing to waste...but a productive mind only has as much value as society assigns to the product.

Markets give everybody the freedom to go around determining how much other people's thoughts/products are worth.

As a result, if I want Paul Krugman's thoughts on pragmatarianism...then it's going to cost me a lot more than just a penny.

As a result, space in the New York Times is not divided equally. Should it be? Or should Super Krugman have a huge chunk of it? Is it fair for Krugman to have infinitely more space in the NY Times than I have? Why should Krugman have infinitely more influence than I have? Why should Elizabeth Warren have infinitely more influence than I have? Why should Obama have infinitely more influence than I have? What's going on here? Why is my megaphone, by comparison, microscopic?

It seems to me that this would be a serious problem. If we're all voting for pizza toppings, and everyone but me gets a single vote while I receive fifty votes, whose preferred pizza toppings are going to be served? Hope you like anchovies, because I do.

I do like anchovies.

Let's tweak your scenario. There's 50 of us at a party. We each have a vote. If you end up with 50 votes...would I call shenanigans? Maybe if you cheated.

Would it be cheating if you went around buying votes? I like anchovies too so I probably wouldn't charge you anything for my vote. So, all things being equal, the less somebody likes anchovies...the more you'll have to pay them. But if somebody voluntarily accepts your money in exchange for their vote...it stands to reason that the exchange was mutually beneficial.

What if you went around exchanging your epic homemade brownies for votes? What if you went around exchanging skillfully drawn portraits for votes? What if you went around exchanging sexual favors for votes?

If somebody voluntarily gives up one thing (x) for another (y)...then we can conclude that, from their perspective, y > x. This means that in a market, if you ended up with everybody's vote...then it was because everybody else ended up with things that they value more than their vote. So why would we complain about vote trading if the outcome is better as a result?

Whether we are talking about ballot votes or dollar votes, giving people the freedom to exchange votes certainly doesn't subvert the will of the people. On the contrary, it clarifies the will of the people. Deep flowcilitation is the realm of sacrifice...it shows us what's beneath the surface.

Allowing Krugman to have infinitely more space in the NY Times than I have doesn't subvert the will of the people. It reflects the will of the people. The question is...how accurately does it reflect the will of the people? More accuracy is certainly better...which is why deep input should always trump shallow input.

If we created a market in the public sector...then Krugman's megaphone would be infinitely larger than my own. This is because nobody is paying me a quarter of a million dollars a year to study income inequality or pragmatarianism or anything else. Neither is anybody giving me a huge chunk of space in the NY Times. Therefore, in a pragmatarian system, Krugman would have infinitely more influence/power/control than I would over how tax dollars were allocated.

The moral of the story is that preventing Krugman from using his large megaphone in the public sector doesn't just block his deep input...it blocks the deep input of the millions of people who have willingly sponsored Krugman's megaphone. The masses have magnified Krugman's influence. The multitude has multiplied Krugman's power. The crowd has clearly deified Krugman. This means that preventing Krugman from shopping in the public sector blatantly subverts the will of the people.

[Dyakovo]

No, this forum is not a market.

[Gaelic Celtia]

I was hoping that there would be no demand for this thread.

Heh. Made me smile.

Anyway uh no, no trading of valuables occurs here.